A personal quest to promote the use of wind energy and hydrogen technology in the Great Lakes area of the United States. The Great Lakes area is in a unique position to become an energy exporting region through these and other renewable energy technologies. *Update 2014: Just do it everywhere - Dan*

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

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COLLEGE CAMPUSES BREAKING THE CHAINS Student run farms on college campuses are cropping up at record levels across the U.S. In 27 states and at 60 colleges, these farms are providing an opportunity for students to learn sustainable farming techniques while incorporating healthy and locally grown produce into the college dining programs, area farmers markets and restaurants. Another 200 colleges across the U.S. have joined the farm-to-college program wherein local farmers provide universities with locally grown produce. As students begin preparation for the fall 2005 semester, the record harvest from these quickly expanding programs clearly indicates the "buy local" movement is on the threshold of mainstream fruition. Learn more and get involved http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc.htm

A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

Beach combers vs. beach owners----------------------------------------A lot of lakefront property owners believe that beach strolling amounts to trespassing, a dispute that has wound up in the courts in at least two Great Lakes states. Source: Great Lakes Radio Consortium (8/15)

Lessons learned from wetland rescue?----------------------------------------Developers often build new ponds when they drain and fill existing wetlands. One group of people is trying something they hope will be more successful: moving a wetland, piece by little tiny piece. Source: Great Lakes Radio Consortium (8/15)

Silt clogging more than just shipping channels----------------------------------------The Toledo shipping channel requires the most dredging of any Great Lakes port due to sediment from Ohio farms, but there seems to be little agreement on what to do with the resulting material. Source: The Toledo Blade (8/15)

EDITORIAL: Devils Lake deal defeat for Canada----------------------------------------Some time this week, the state of North Dakota will thumb its nose at Canada and start pumping water out of Devils Lake, sending it north across the international border. Source: The Toronto Star (8/15)

2 hospitals made incinerator deals----------------------------------------An agreement to shut down the last two hospital incinerators operating in the Chicago area will still allow them to burn trash and emit toxic waste for another five years. Source: Chicago Tribune (8/15)

Report: Wetlands violations on incline----------------------------------------Wisconsin environmental officials are reporting an increasing number of violations of wetlands protection laws. Source: The Appleton Post-Crescent (8/15)

Not enough fun in sun? Beach cleaning debated----------------------------------------A city council member and some residents are upset over the Wisconsin DNR's refusal to allow the city of Two Rivers to groom and remove vegeation along its entire Lake Michigan beachfront. Source: Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter (8/15)

The Great Lakes: An endangered legacy----------------------------------------While much of the damage inflicted on the Great Lakes over the years is beginning to heal, other threats are intensifying: This special report package features multiple stories addressing issues facing the Great Lakes and what is being done to address them. Source: The Detroit News (8/14)

Big plans for small wind farms----------------------------------------While large wind farms in Wisconsin face major regulatory and environmental hurdles, one group of wind-energy investors is cruising along one turbine at a time. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (8/14)

MADISON - Long polymer "bandages," designed so that troops could quickly repair or reinforce bridges to bear the weight of 113-ton military tank transport vehicles, now could be used to quickly and inexpensively strengthen aging rural bridges and concrete culverts around the country.

With initial funding from the Army Corps of Engineers, Lawrence Bank, professor of civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his then-student Anthony Lamanna, perfected these bandages, or fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) strips. They then patented the strips through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

In wartime, the strips could be key to keeping important transportation routes available, says James Ray, a structural engineer for the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center. "The main thing these strips would be used for is if the bridges don't have sufficient capacity to start with," he says. "The military loadings are very heavy compared to what bridges are normally designed for."

Using fiber-reinforced composite strips to bolster concrete structures isn't a new idea. Crews have been gluing them in place for more than a decade.

But transforming the crumbly, cracked and pockmarked underside of a decades-old concrete bridge into a surface suitable for glue takes good weather, a lot of time and more than a little labor.

"You have to sandblast; you have to repair with a mortar," says Bank. "Typically on bridges, you're doing things overhead, which is also unpleasant."

Fastening the strips to the bridge with a tool akin to a power nailer seemed like an obvious alternative. The problem, however, was that existing strips, which contain only longitudinal fibers, wouldn't hold up when the fasteners punctured them. They split, much like a dry board might crack when a nail hits the wrong place.

"When you attach with fasteners, you have to have different properties in the strip," says Bank. "You have to have high bearing strength - which is that you could press on the strip with these fasteners and it's not going to crack and split."

Sort of like duct tape without the stick, Bank and Lamanna's reinforcing strips combine carbon fibers, glass fibers and glass mats. The mats, which are woven in tight crisscrosses, are key to the new strips' success.

"If you make a hole in the strip and you push on the hole, the weave allows it to carry that load," says Bank. "If you just have these longitudinal fibers, if you make a hole and you push on it, it's going to slide."

Bank's strips, which are stiff but not rigid, act like super-strong bandages that workers can quickly and inexpensively attach to the underside of a bridge with powder-actuated concrete fasteners.

To test the strips, county workers installed them on the decaying 1930s Stoughton Road bridge in Edgerton, Wis., in 2002. "It was really bad," says Tom Hartzell, Edgerton public works director. "There were some big cracks that went all the way through."

During the installation, which took three workers less than a day, a thunderstorm whipped up. The bridge was in such poor condition that rainwater and run-off poured through the cracks. "You cannot use a technique where you bond on strips in that environment," says Bank.

Total cost for strengthening the bridge was about $8,000; eventually, Edgerton replaced it at a cost of $196,800, including plan development, state review, old bridge removal and new bridge construction.

In Wisconsin, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) evaluates all of the state's bridges every two years and assigns them a sufficiency rating. If a bridge's rating is below 50, it probably is on the docket for partial federal funding for replacement, says DOT bridge maintenance and inspection engineer Matt Murphy, who monitors the structures in Wisconsin's 10 southwestern counties.

Of the 1,800 small bridges - structures greater than 20 feet long - in those counties, as many as three dozen might have sufficiency ratings below 50. In that case, they're probably load-posted, which means that they're not safe for heavier vehicles like tractors or milk trucks to cross. "It's an inconvenience to the traveling public and the locals," he says.###- Renee Meiller, (608) 262-2481, meiller@engr.wisc.edu

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Beijing, China (AFP) Aug 02, 2005China plans to have a quarter of the country covered by forest within 15 years as it tries to repair the damage loggers have done to fuel the runaway economy, state media said Monday.

The State Forestry Administration said forest coverage will reach 23 percent in the next 10 to 15 years, an increase of five percent.

"The increase in forests will outpace what the country consumed or lost during the growth of its economy," administration director Zhou Shengxian was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

Addressing a conference in Beijing, he said new plans have been made for planting trees throughout China.

The above links are all to the e-book versions of these chapbooks.
For paperback versions and to view a listing of all my books as they are released click
HERE: Dan Stafford's Poetic Universe

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About Me

Happily married with two grown children out on their own, I've had extensive life experience in many areas. I consider myself a Progressive, and I strive to make the world a better place for those around me and those who'll follow after us. I am an Air Force Veteran, and I have been a Telecommunications Technician since 1993, with a Vocational Diploma in Aircraft Electronics. My interests are Environmentalism, Science, Social Justice, Poetry and Music, Reading, Karate, and learning Spanish. I'm originally from Southern Wisconsin, and have lived in the Chicago Metro area (Naperville, Plainfield, & Oak Brook) since late 1997. Moved to Temecula, CA January of 2015.

Why I Publish This Blog:

"One thing that many people do not realize is that states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan are sitting on a gold mine of wind energy potential. Or, more properly, next to the mine. The Great Lakes are probably the area in the USA with the third largest inland wind energy potential. Think of just the nickname for Chicago. "The Windy City". Milwaukee is even windier, I can tell you. Why? Because they sit on the edge of a great flat area where there is both a land-water temperaturedifferential, and a large flat expanse of water that is comparably shallow.Oilrigs certainly operate in deeper waters. And you won't have to construct transmission lines all the way from the plains of Montana to put it to use.

The Great Lakes area has an opportunity to get the jump on wind energy's future, if that fact isrecognized and exploited. Wind energy means jobs for construction and maintenance workers, thousandsof them. Wind energy means leasing rights and extra money for family farmers struggling to make it onagriculture alone. In most cases farmers can grow crops right up to the base of a windmill. The landfootprint has a small impact on total farm acreage. Wind energy also means freedom from fluctuatingfuel prices. Wind is free. The cost of a barrel of polluting oil can be raised or lowered drasticallybased on fears or political whims. The potential gains are enormous. We've all seen the flow of goodmanufacturing jobs out of the area. Well, they can't tell the wind to blow in another country so it'smore "convenient" or cheaper to produce. The wind is perfectly happy to whip up opportunities for usright around here. Most of all, because we here in the Great Lakes region have the potential to havea huge positive impact on U.S. energy industry emissions' contribution to global warming."

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Safe, healthy, good for the economy, good for the environment, good for farmers, good for you, and just downright good produce:

I strongly encourage those seriously interested in learning about the technology, players, politics, and issues of Wind Energy to spend time browsing the
American Wind Energy Association website. They are the premier industry trade organization and have extensive resources available.
(www.awea.org)